NOT ALL JEWS SUPPORT ISRAEL

Wednesday 11 December 2019

To the British public.

The fact which is often ignored in the debate about anti-Semitism in the UK is that many Jews in the UK and throughout Europe oppose the policies of Israel, and strongly reject the claims of that state to represent them.

We find the accusations that criticizing Israeli policy is a form of anti-Semitism to be stereotyping Jews under one political banner, and suggesting that British Jews are more loyal to the State of Israel than they are to their homeland. Those are, in themselves, racist anti-Jewish tropes.

As members of Jewish associations throughout Europe, we strongly oppose the colonial and racist persecution of the Palestinian People by the State of Israel, a persecution which has taken a variety of forms since, and even before, the establishing of that state.

Since the end of the British mandate in Palestine, the State of Israel expanded its territory through military conquest, supported by all Western Nations in North America and Europe. Britain itself as well as its NATO allies turned a blind eye to the State of Israel destruction of the UN’s Partition Plan of 1947 and the persistent violation of numerous UN resolutions.

Our opposition is founded on ethical, political and judicial principles of freedom, justice and equality. We demand that the State of Israel be held accountable to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which it signed in 1948.

Governments in Europe which denounce critics of Israeli policies as anti-Semites are complicit in the violations of Palestinian rights to land, equality, freedom and justice. By accusing critics of Israeli policies as ’anti-Semites’, governments make improper use of [abuse] laws and values put in place in Europe and elsewhere to protect Jews from persecution. This twist of purpose and meaning of those laws and values do effectively allow and even promote war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians on a daily basis and against neighbouring countries and their citizens time and time again.

As Jews, we adamantly refuse our name to be used to justify them in any sense.